Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple (AAPL), was once again first in line for an Apple release. Except this time, instead of spending the night outside an Apple store on his home turf of Los Gatos, tech’s most lovable mascot found himself queuing up for the new iPad at the Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles.

Wozniak has a history of spending the night outside an Apple store, just to be the first.

He didn’t make the trek just to buy the new iPad; he came down to give a speech at the Apple Investor Summit on Friday. But that did not preclude him from getting in line outside the Apple store at 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, 18 hours before the company officially put the iPad on sale.

And if you think that’s early, consider this: His wife got there at noon.

Wozniak told the Associated Press that waiting all night for the new iPad was not just a stunt to impress those investors at the summit — he really does want a new iPad. Apparently the last iPad he bought was one with low memory, and he said it doesn’t allow him to store as many movies on the device as he would like.

He also said that people in Northern California tend to get more excited about Apple releases than they do in Southern California.

Fair enough. Even Apple can’t compete with the kind of celebrities L.A. has.

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